Thread: Was this illegal or just plain disgraceful?

Originally Posted by smidsy

In terms of revenue raising, I have seen it happen.
When I worked in the WA Camera section we would see the cameras all of a sudden get switched from main roads where they averaged up to several hundred speeders a shift, to residential streets where they were lucky to get 2 or 3. The reason was openly stated within the section that the amount of money raised by the camera's was a publicly known figure, that the public had a set amount they would tolerate before it became politically dangerous to the government, and when that figure was close the cameras were switched to areas where they would get little or no speeders.

Hmmmmmmmmmm ....


Under the Westminster system of govt, which Australia follows ... it is absolutely verboten for the three bodies (govt, judiciary, police) to collude in any way at all.

In order to 'raise revenue' collusion would have to occur. Despite others within your section openly stating ... they are only stating their opinions, not actual evidence.

Also ... In busy traffic streams, peak hours, if the 'average' speed of traffic is over the limit it will not be presecuted because it would be counter productive. This is not the same as revenue raising.

my opinion only ... Greg

There are lots of flaws Greg.
When I started working at Camera section I took the trouble to read the ADR's in relation to speed monitoring and in particular vehicle speedos.
At the time, the ADR's stated that a vehicle speedo was considered accurate if reading + or - 10%. That means that in a 100 zone, with your speedo showing 100, you could be doing anywhere between 90 and 110 yet your speedo is accurate according to the ADR's.
When I first started working at Camera section the camera's were set to go at speed limit +9k, within 4 months that had dropped to +8. So on the freeway you would be pinged at 108, yet the ADR's stated your speedo was accurate if it showed 100 and you were doing up 110.
So in actual fact the WA Police were asking you to guard your speed to a higher degree of accuracy than allowed by the ADR's.

What you say about collusion I assume is correct (I don't know) but remember that in most states the police commisioner is appointed by the government, that same police commisioner gets his contract renewed, or not, by the same government.
While there may not be any blatant illegality, if a politician were to suggest to a commisioner that the camera's are better off on road A which has lots speeders but very few traffic accidents, rather than road B which has had a spate a bad accidents but would get very few speeders, then the said commisioner would be considered nothing more than human for heeding that suggestion.

In terms of the camera's I actually believe they should be hidden, I disagree strongly with the locations being made public. That said there is a certain amount of revenue raising done with them which is proven by the locations they are used in - don't take my word for it, see if you can get a list of last years locations via RTI and compare that with a list of fatal accident locations or the RAC's bad roads list. You won't see many matches.

Extract from ADR

5.3. The speed indicated shall not be less than the true speed of the vehicle. At the test speeds specified in paragraph 5.2.5. above, there shall be the following relationship between the speed displayed (V1 ) and the true speed (V2).


0 ≤ (V1 - V2) ≤ 0.1 V2 + 4 km/h

So you can not be travelling faster than the speedo displayed speed.

EDIT
This is the current ADR.
So don't use the old ADR as an excuse when pulled over....

Note that the first three words of my statement concerning ADR's are "at the time".
I have no idea what the ADR's state now, but at the time they stipulated + or - 10%.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Anyhoo.....back on topic......

Bushmiller and I came up with an elegant solution on Sunday to salve the problem. It may happen sooner than we thought Paul.

Brett

Right on .

Regards
Paul

Been away for a while. Initially recovering from the euphoria of the BM GTG2 and then from going bush and milling a little timber for my work bench and several hundred other projects (yeah, yeah I know I've been told a million times not to exaggerate).

Some very interesting points have been made while I was not around (I might have to to disappear or at least stay a little quieter again).

My own belief is that rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men. Now I am not really in the category of wise men and I have to acknowledge that Douglas Bader mentioned this thought a long time before me.

I heard a long time a ago that if you want people to travel at 110Kph you set set the speed limit at 100Kph and so on. If the law becomes pedantic it can penalise you for a minor infringement and raise revenue. If thirty are cars are travelling at 70 Kph in a 60Kph zone down the Paramatta road in Sydney during the rush hour it is unlikely the cops will pull you over. Do the same trick at night time and you might get pinged. (Don't pull me up on semantics here as I am trying to illustrate a point).

The point is that the law is a guideline at best and at worst it can be enforced to the Nth degree. It can be used as a revenue raising tool or it can be enforced with the spirit of the law in mind and the intention of the law at heart.

The irony is that because it is law, you have no grounds to stand on if they chose to enforce it. In fact the administrators would probably say it is not in the jurisdiction of the police to use discretion. No wonder the law has a reputation for being an ar*s.

I believe in practice many police do exercise discretion, but probably not enough of them and this is partly because of senior police being on their backs. Do I have facts to back this up? No: It's just a supposition.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I heard a long time a ago that if you want people to travel at 110Kph you set set the speed limit at 100Kph and so on. If the law becomes pedantic it can penalise you for a minor infringement and raise revenue. If thirty are cars are travelling at 70 Kph in a 60Kph zone down the Paramatta road in Sydney during the rush hour it is unlikely the cops will pull you over. Do the same trick at night time and you might get pinged. (Don't pull me up on semantics here as I am trying to illustrate a point).

The point is that the law is a guideline at best and at worst it can be enforced to the Nth degree. It can be used as a revenue raising tool or it can be enforced with the spirit of the law in mind and the intention of the law at heart.

The irony is that because it is law, you have no grounds to stand on if they chose to enforce it. In fact the administrators would probably say it is not in the jurisdiction of the police to use discretion. No wonder the law has a reputation for being an ar*s.

I believe in practice many police do exercise discretion, but probably not enough of them and this is partly because of senior police being on their backs. Do I have facts to back this up? No: It's just a supposition.

Regards
Paul

You are probably correct.

Perhaps it is also a matter of a few go to far, and everyone else suffers for it.

It is not so much that some go a few K's over, but one or two go more than a few K's over.

The law is the law, just that some one needs to enforce it.

G'day Paul,
Good to see you are safe & well at home.
The Parramatta Road at 70kph in peak hours is a big stretch as that traffic is normally bumper to bumper.
BUT understand what you are saying from my one & one speeding ticket back in the early 1970's in Melbourne when the ship I was on was in Williamtown dockyard for hull repairs..... week days the drive from the Marabonong accommodation to the dock the traffic sat on nearly 80kph in the 60 zone... on Sunday I had duty watch and got done for doing 65kph in the 60 zone at 6am with no traffic on the road and no discretion even for a member of the Royal Australian Navy on his way to his ship... did the crime & paid the fine.
Cheers, crowie

Originally Posted by smidsy

The reason motorcyclists have more accidents than cars is because of asshole drivers who either don't see us because they have their head up their ####, ipod, or newspaper (and yeah when I worked at Camera section in WA I saw a woman doing 78/60 while reading a newspaper, this particular shot taken by the best operator in the section and I could read the masthead of the paper) or, they see us and don't give a ####, or they see us and deliberately use size and the fact that we're unprotected to intimidate us.
I was doing 105 on the Bruce Hwy south bound from the Bribie island road and had a rigid tipper literally 200mm off my back wheel - I still have his rego and when I see him there'll be an unpleasant (for him) conversation.
Motorcyclist block the road - which dream or movie did you see that in, yeah the bikies get an escort but any cop will tell you that that's for the protection of the general rather than the bikies benefit, and before providing that escort the cops go in mob handed to RBT, drug test, and do licence and roadworthiness checks on ever bike and rider.
Truckies get a police escort when they do xmas charity runs and so do hot rodders.

It's been scientifically proven that motorcycles create less congestion and less polution.
Motorcycles are also better trained and tested to a higher standard than car drivers - the sum total of my tests for C and HC licences was less than 40 minutes. I did a 5 hour assessment last year for my restricted bike licence and will do another 5 hours in a few weeks for my open licence.
We also pay more in rego in taxes since most of us have both car and bike, and our bikes are better maintained since a mechanical issue (such as sudden tyre deflation) could lead to an accident.

You are talking about Aussy, I am talking about France. As you can see, that's where I live. As for road condition of motos. There is no Control Tecnique, mechanical test, for bikes here and a lot of them are in a terrible condition.

The French are lovely people until they get behind a steering wheel and then so many of them go very offensive and will give way to no-one, especially motos. But so many bikers are so bad and yes, when they have a greevance they will and do block roads. There was an incident that did just that for a couple of hours in the cenret of Carcassonne a while back. Even the emergency vehicles were blocked. I was in Carcassonne when it happened and wondered what the hell it was all about? The reason was that the governement wanted to pass a law that cars had to have riding lights during the day so that they could be seen easily! Bikers saids it would make them more vunerable and blocked roads all over the country.

That law didn't happen and now the fashion is that almost all the new cars have high power led lights at the front anyway.

If you were to go at every driver who tailgated you here then you would be a VERY busy person.

I also agree with what has been said before. If you knew the law and decided to break it then you have no reason to cry out about the fine me-thinks..

As Bushmiller said, the police can either enforce the law to the inth degree or they can apply a little leniency.
In my instance, I accept that I was in the wrong, I just think that a degree of mercy and leniency could have been applied by the officer given my situation.
I will also state that in 26 years of driving, having received a few fines, this is the first time I have ever complained about one - ah well, between licences and industry tickets Queensland main roads get so much money off me each year that another $110 won't make much difference.

As for the mechanical condition of bikes, here it varies from state to state, and in Queensland aside from a pretty basic change of ownership road worthiness check there is no mechanical checks. That said, every motorcyclist I know keeps their bike in top condition because of the vulnerability issue - for example losing tyre pressure on a car can get exciting but is usually survivable, the same thing on a bike can at best cost some skin.

And John, turning in to an a-hole when you step behind the wheel is not soley a French trait, many Aussies suffer from that problem.

So what is the big solution you guys have alluded to, I'm curious given that I once had a discussion with a cop over parking the wrong way on a street - in my case I had no idea it was illegal and had parked that way outside work to save myself a 3 point turn at knock off as I had virtually no clutch.

Cheers
Paul
(Smidsy)

PS Sorry for hijacking your thread guys.

Originally Posted by smidsy

As Bushmiller said, the police can either enforce the law to the nth degree or they can apply a little leniency.

IMO the stronger the enforcement of all our laws the better of we will be. If you want to be a law breaker then you deserve the punishment it entails.

Originally Posted by smidsy

In my instance, I accept that I was in the wrong, I just think that a degree of mercy and leniency could have been applied by the officer given my situation.

In your case, with all the experience you said you have, no mercy or leniency should be given, in fact because of your experience the fine should have been higher.

Originally Posted by smidsy

I'm curious given that I once had a discussion with a cop over parking the wrong way on a street - in my case I had no idea it was illegal and had parked that way outside work to save myself a 3 point turn at knock off as I had virtually no clutch.

If you had virtually no clutch your car was unroadworthy and should have been taken of the road. With you're experience of the law you should have known that. Another law breaking event of which you seem to be proud of.

------

What amazes me that some of you guys seem to think that adhering to road laws is an optional exercise depending on how you feel or the time of day or whether it's a full moon.

If you take that attitude you might also decide that stop signs, give way signs or even traffic lights can be ignored. Or reduced speed at school crossings or what about pedestrian crossings.

I'm more and more convinced that the hoon laws should be made tougher and applied to lower speed offences. If your car gets crushed for disobeying road laws you may start to obey the law. Also mandatory loss of licence ought to be in place for a lot more offences than drink driving, with mandatory jail time if caught driving without a licence.

If these stronger measures get put in place, and strictly enforced, the emergency rooms at our hospitals might be half empty and more hospital beds and surgery would be available for those that need it rather then inconsiderate and stupid drivers.

Peter.

It seems that the laws are made for the average driver, but we all know we're better than average, so we shouldn't have to obey them.

Originally Posted by AlexS

It seems that the laws are made for the average driver, but we all know we're better than average, so we shouldn't have to obey them.

I'm sure that you'll keep saying that when a speeding drunk driver hits the car that your best mate was driving and kills him, like what happened to my mate.

It's easy to talk in the abstract or make fun of it thinking it will never happen to you BUT when you or your family are touched in a similar manner by these hoons that disobey the road laws I'm sure you will very quickly change your tune.

I'll now leave this topic, I've said my bit, but some of you with your attitudes disgust me.

Peter.

Sturdee, I think it's the inconsistency that aggravates people more than anything. Some examples from my experience, and I shall put them up as separate posts to avoid a great slab of text. My point is that the law cannot be universally applied because situations are not universally the same, and interpretation, common sense and above all local conditions must be taken into account to effect good policing.

1.
When living in the Southern Highlands in the late 90s I had been out for dinner, and home was about 2-3km away. I'd had some wine over a fair period, and finished with a very small neat Single Malt (purely as a digestive of course). I felt that I was ok to drive (didn't feel intoxicated at all). About 1 km from home there was random breath testing, and I was pulled over, and naturally I felt a little apprehensive. I explained what I'd had to drink, and that I'd just a few minutes before finished a neat Scotch, and would have residual mouth alcohol. The copper said that I could either blow now and he would make a small allowance for that or I could wait 20 minutes. I chose the former, and the breathalyser went amber (borderline, over/under). He asked me how far I had to go, "1 km" and he said "off you go then". Bear in mind that this is rural NSW, not a big city. On the public relations side of things I had an increased respect for the police after this.